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Thorcon power underground fusion molten salt reactor using ship design. http://thorconpower.com/ http://thorconpower.com/ Lockheed martin compact fusion http:/

by acd 12y ago

Thorcon power underground fusion molten salt reactor using ship design. http://thorconpower.com/ http://thorconpower.com/ Lockheed martin compact fusion http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.htm... We are marching towards the fusion age, looking forward to that since we do not need to pump monarchy/dictator oil in the cars which is directly funding extreme religion which is a source for terrorism. Combine fusion with a battery breakthrough for electric cars and we will have clean air cities and cheap transportation!

arethuza 12y ago
Isn't Thorcon a molten salt fission reactor?
- DennisP 12y ago
  It is. Interesting approach, instead of tackling corrosion with advanced alloys, they just use plain ol' steel and design the reactor so it's easy to replace all the pipes every four years.
- msandford 12y ago
  Yes, but it's not a traditional fission reactor that uses 1% of the fuel and wastes the other 99%. "Fission" is only a dirty word because of the types of fission reactors that have been built. If you build a fission reactor that burns say, 99% of the fuel and only wastes 1% of it, suddenly it's just as good as fusion, but better because we already know how to do it and we already have tested the design. Fission or fusion doesn't matter, it's the fuel lifecycle, plant lifecycle and the quantity of waste products per energy output that matter.
DennisP 12y ago
Also Helion, UW's Dynomak, Sandia's MagLIF, LPP's focus fusion, IEC's polywell, General Fusion, and Tri-Alpha, just to take a selection of active projects with relatively near-term timelines. Ycombinator put some money into Helion: http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/y-combinator-and-mithril-invest-in-helion-a-nuclear-fusion-startup/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/y-combinator-and-mithril-in...

by acd 12y ago

arethuza 12y ago

Isn't Thorcon a molten salt fission reactor?

DennisP 12y ago
It is. Interesting approach, instead of tackling corrosion with advanced alloys, they just use plain ol' steel and design the reactor so it's easy to replace all the pipes every four years.
msandford 12y ago
Yes, but it's not a traditional fission reactor that uses 1% of the fuel and wastes the other 99%. "Fission" is only a dirty word because of the types of fission reactors that have been built. If you build a fission reactor that burns say, 99% of the fuel and only wastes 1% of it, suddenly it's just as good as fusion, but better because we already know how to do it and we already have tested the design. Fission or fusion doesn't matter, it's the fuel lifecycle, plant lifecycle and the quantity of waste products per energy output that matter.

DennisP 12y ago

Also Helion, UW's Dynomak, Sandia's MagLIF, LPP's focus fusion, IEC's polywell, General Fusion, and Tri-Alpha, just to take a selection of active projects with relatively near-term timelines. Ycombinator put some money into Helion: http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/y-combinator-and-mithril-invest-in-helion-a-nuclear-fusion-startup/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/14/y-combinator-and-mithril-in...